Athletes and their trainers often keep track of the progress and conditioning of the athlete. Many computerized systems exist which collect biometric data from an athlete during training and subsequently process and display such information for use by the athlete or the trainer. Recently, such systems have become available where the sensor designed to collect the biometric data is incorporated into an athletic garment worn by the athlete. An example of such a system is disclosed in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2010/0185398.
With many existing athletic monitoring systems, biometric data for an athlete is collected by a sensing device during a training session. The biometric data collected during the training session is stored in the memory of a computer that is carried by the athlete or within a short range of the athlete. For example, an athlete may wear a heart rate monitor during a training session, and data from the heart rate monitor may be transmitted to the memory of a handheld personal computer carried by the athlete (e.g., a wristwatch, smartphone or other handheld personal computer in wired or wireless communication with the sensor). Biometric data collected by heart rate monitor or other sensing device is often transmitted to the associated handheld personal computer in real time using a short range wireless technology such as Bluetooth®. The handheld personal computer may process the data locally or may transmit data to a remote location for processing and/or storage. For example, data transmitted to the handheld personal computer may be transmitted over the cellular telephone network to an internet server or other network computer for further processing (e.g., processing within “the cloud”).
In view of the foregoing, it would be advantageous to provide an accurate and reliable system and method for properly collecting biometric data from an athlete during a training session or other sporting event. It would be particularly advantageous if the system included a reliable method for insuring that collected data is not lost when communications between the sensor device and a handheld personal computer is interrupted. It would also be advantageous for the sensor device to be configured for operation in associate with any of various handheld personal devices or other computing devices that may be selected by an athlete or other user.